Connecting to Informix

Prerequisite software

In order to connect to an Informix database you need to install an Informix Client, such as IBM Informix Connect. Ensure that you select the ODBC Driver during the install of the client.

After installing the Client, you should reboot your PC.

Configuring the Informix ODBC Driver

In order to connect to your Informix server using AQT, you will need to configure an ODBC Datasource for your database. The general process for doing this is described in Configuring a Database Connection.

To configure this, specify:

• Datasource Name. The name you give this ODBC datasource.
• Description. Not used. Leave blank.
• Server Name. The name of your Informix server. You should get this name from your DBA or person who created the Informix server. By default, the name will be ol_machinename (example: if your machine is called server1, the default name for the informix server will be ol_server1).

  If you specify this incorrectly, you will get the following message when you try to connect: "INFORMIXSERVER does not match either DBSERVERNAME or DBSERVERALIAS".

• Host Name. The hostname or IP Address of the machine on which the Informix Server resides. Specify localhost if the Informix server resides on your PC.
• Service. The name of the TCP/IP port your Informix Server is listening on. The default port for Informix is 1526; if in doubt check with your DBA.
• Protocol. Use onsoctcp
• Database Name. This specifies the database you will be connected to once you sign on to the Informix server. This is mandatory. You can click the drop-down list to get the valid choices - make sure the other attributes (including user-id and password) are filled out before you click this).

  If you do not know the name of a database, use sysmaster.

Locales

These are specified on the Environment tab. Both Client Locale and Database Locale must be specified correctly. If not, you will get the mesage "Unable to load translation dll".

• The default values, en_US.CP1252 for both Client and Database Locales, should work.
• Alternatively, a client locale of en_US.8859-1 and a Database Locale of en_US.819 should also work.
• Make sure you reboot your PC after installing the client, otherwise you will get "Unable to load translation dll" no matter what you specify.
• If you are using Unicode in your database, specify en_US.UTF8 for both of these.

You can find the locales of your databases by the following query (if you have a connection!)

Select * from sysmaster:informix.sysdbslocale

Test Connect

After configuring your datasource, click on Apply & Test Connection (on the Connection tab) to check that the connection has been set up correctly.